Dock Collapses Under Wedding Party Posing for Photo

If you watched the Fstoppers "How To Become a Professional Commercial Wedding Photographer" DVD, you might remember a scene where Lee Is shooting by the water. He later told us he was too concerned for the structural integrity of a dock to put a wedding party on it, stating he didn't want to be "that photographer." Well, Lee might have avoided it, but this group sure didn't.

Given the musical stylings and nature of the editing, I'm going to go ahead and assume everyone got out of this ok, if not for being wet and cold. Just remember folks, those docks can handle two or maybe even five people... not 20.

Jaron Schneider is an Fstoppers Contributor and an internationally published writer and cinematographer from San Francisco, California. His clients include Maurice Lacroix, HD Supply, SmugMug, the USAF Thunderbirds and a host of industry professionals.

I'm not sure I'd put an entire wedding party on a dock like that because it's a boring shot... and maybe someone would fall off *cough groomsmen fooling around cough*. However, since docks are designed to hold boats in place, in all fairness the photographer had no reason to think it would collapse.

What the....? Holding a boat in place is vastly different than holding almost 2 tons. A horizontal load is very much different than a vertical load here. Even a heavier boat would exert a very small load, because the force is much smaller. There is no gravity at play with the boat. You have the small gentle rocking of the boat which at times gently tugs at the dock.

Well perhaps I have different standards of what docks should and should not be able to do since I have lived in a hurricane state for 30 years. I've seen docks standing after Cat 4 storms with multiple boats slamming into them, boats on TOP of them, and other random freak accidents that lead to them bearing weight you would not imagine. But thank you for the physics lesson, I had absolutely no idea how gravity worked until you came along and enlightened me.

On a side note... the only comments I see from you are condescending to others or argumentative. Every. Single. Comment.